SceneStudy – Cars Don’t Fly

“Your chute is guided by GPS! You don’t have to do anything!”Dear Furious 7 writers: a solid effort, but that line does not convince me skydiving in cars is plausible.

“Cars Don’t Fly!”– Paul Walker, Furious 7 –

I know, Furious 7 is just a dumb action movie, and maybe I shouldn’t take it as seriously as I’m about to. Nevertheless, I’d like to take a moment to over-analyse the parachute sequence. The scene was in the trailer, and I couldn’t believe how stupid it looked. I went in expecting it to be bad, and boy, were those expectations met. No disrespect to fans of the franchise, there are plenty of films I like that I know are terrible. Sometimes we need this kind of mindless entertainment to escape for a while, to go along for the ride. With this film though, it just didn’t work for me. I couldn’t avoid laughing at the film’s complete disregard for the concept of physics throughout this entire sequence.

Alright, so the gang all put the pedal to the medal and reverse out of a moving plane once the back door opens. Dominic (Vin Diesel) goes out first and free-falls on his own for a while.

Exactly 19 seconds later (I’ve counted), Brian (Paul Walker) reverses out of the plane, followed closely by the other two cars.

The plane isn’t hovering in the air, so as those 19 seconds pass by, Dom would be falling straight down while the other cars move forward, maintaining the same height. For the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume the film uses non-linear editing and Brian and Dominic’s drop from the plane is really only a few seconds apart. But if that’s the case, how does this…

…Become this:

With one cut, these four cars end up in perfect alignment with each other, falling straight down. They should be staggered, with Dominic being closest to the ground and furthest from the plane. Kind of like they are when they all set off their chutes:

That’s right, with the power of editing the cars are back in this formation following the release of their parachutes. It’s as if they’re teleporting to different points in midair from one shot to the next. Everyone floats safely to the ground, landing perfectly on the road, and begins driving.

Well, everyone except for Mr. Comic Relief Guy, who was too afraid to back out of the plane on time. Despite leaving long after the rest of the group, he somehow ends up ahead of them, with his parachute caught in the trees. Even though he is clearly hanging high above the trees: